left to fend for themselves, since there were no professional gardeners as there were in Great Britain. Decades later, the situation in America would not be much better. Meehan suggested in an 1874 edition of his Gardener’s Monthly that the lack “of horticultural colleges is one of the principal reasons why there are few educated and really competent gardeners.”
Although the meaning of gardener has a long history in English gardening, American professional gardeners before 1870 were to be found only on the estates of the wealthy, tending to the fruit trees, lawns, and greenhouses. In contrast to the British with their system for training gardeners, the free-spirited Americans most often sought work in factories in the city or working the fields on a farm. Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, indeed the profession of horticulture did not attract many native-born Americans.34 This disadvantage did not go unnoticed. As Andrew Jackson Downing wrote in his magazine The Horticulturist, in an article that compared American and British horticulture, “Rapid as the progress of horticulture is at the present time in the United States, there can be no doubt that it is immensely retarded by this disadvantage, that all our gardeners have been educated in the school of British horticulture.”35
The need to train professional gardeners shows how important gardening and gardeners were to the British; they took their gardens seriously. Eventually, so would American garden lovers, who did not necessarily enlist professional gardeners but nevertheless came to view the garden as something worthwhile, especially for an emerging middle class with suburban homes. Though seed and nursery businesses such as Hovey’s contributed to the growing importance of American gardening, the homeowner did not fear to take on the role of gardener.
Over a three-hundred-year period, England had evolved a definable garden style. It makes sense, therefore, that American seedsmen and nurserymen, eager to find an image to convey the message of the importance of the garden in their marketing, would rely on that tradition to teach their customers how to garden and to promote the sale of seeds and plants.
America Reflects English Horticulture
Garden historian Abigail Lustig has written that horticulture, as a new mode of gardening and botany, was an English invention, but it did not remain confined to Great Britain.36 Nineteenth-century botany and horticulture in Great Britain would also have an impact on America, but not without the involvement of American seed and nursery industries.
Many horticultural developments in Great Britain were reflected on the American continent in the nineteenth century. To pursue his dream of educating others in horticulture, Hovey, seedsman and nurseryman, among others, took part in garden-related practices that reflected what the English had already introduced to the world of gardening.
Horticultural Societies
In 1804, English plant enthusiasts began the Horticultural Society of London, later to become the Royal Horticultural Society. The organization focused on plant science and exploration, and the members encouraged the development of gardens using the newest plants, whether imported from the Americas or from Asia. Members were primarily wealthy businessmen and aristocrats who had an interest in building greenhouses and cultivating exotic plants in the landscape. Exotic plantings were displayed in a range of specialized garden areas such as the American garden, which featured native American plants, and the pinetum, a collection of evergreens. Eventually, the horticultural societies appealed to the middle-class gardener, particularly in their yearly exhibitions of plants, which would attract hundreds of visitors.
The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (1827), the Massachusetts Horticultural Society (1829), and the New York Horticultural Society (1855) came along shortly thereafter and modeled themselves after the Royal Horticultural Society. Like the English society, which was made up of the British landed gentry, at the start wealthy American merchants who were also avid gentleman farmers formed the membership of the horticultural societies.37 Prominent American seedsmen and nurserymen were often officers of these societies, if not founding members, for nineteenth-century nurserymen and seedsmen founded horticultural and pomological socie-ties wherever they had their businesses.38 In Boston, for example, Hovey served as president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society from 1863 to 1866. Boston nurseryman Marshall Wilder and seedsman Joseph Breck also served as president. Local nurserymen William Kenrick and Jacob W. Manning, along with seedsman James J. H. Gregory, were involved as well. Fruit grower Robert Manning, from Salem, was both secretary and editor of the history of the society.
At the laying of the cornerstone for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s new building in 1864, Hovey, in his role as society president, said, “We erect this Temple to foster and extend a taste for the pleasant, useful, and refined art of gardening.”39 Thus, Hovey extended his passion for gardening by presiding over the premier horticultural society in the city as well as erecting a building for future lovers of gardening. Indeed, it was through Hovey’s skills in fund-raising that the new building in Boston, at the corner of Tremont and Montgomery, saw the light of day.
Horticultural societies enabled middle-class gardeners to enjoy gardening in a way only the wealthy could before, particularly in the ability to collect plants and build greenhouses. Although a few people were collecting plants before 1800, the era of serious plant collecting, with an emerging botany as well, did not begin until 1805, with the Horticultural Society of London. Such horticultural societies had as their goal, as Hovey recognized, fostering a passion for gardening, which included bringing unfamiliar plants to a wide audience. As evidence of this broad interest, thousands attended the yearly exhibitions of fruits, flowers, and vegetables sponsored by societies, such as the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, which held its first public exhibition (the precursor of the current annual Philadelphia Flower Show) in 1829.
Exhibitions were good for business not only in expanding the market but also in achieving higher visibility. Seed companies and nurseries collected, grew, and sold seeds and plants, especially novelties, to satisfy customer interest. Hovey, for example, grew hundreds of pears, apples, and plums, as well as camellias and chrysanthemums, after he expanded his nursery in 1840.
Parks
Loudon, in an 1833 issue of his garden magazine, defended the importance of parks for the health of all classes of people. He wrote, “The time is just commencing for the embellishments of public parks, and gardens adjoining towns, in which the beau ideal of this description of scenery will be realized, at the expense of all, and for the enjoyment of all.”40 The majority of the population, not just the monarchy and the wealthy, needed outdoor green space. Because Loudon’s ideas on landscape inspired Downing, who in turn was an important influence for Frederick Law Olmsted, America’s foremost park builder, it is no surprise that Central Park demonstrates the influence of the English view of the picturesque landscape.
Loudon considered the garden to be an agent of social change. He wanted green space or parks, especially in the cities, where people could enjoy fresh air. Many of his readers agreed. In London, Hyde Park and St. James Park were initially intended for wealthy aristocrats. In 1835, Regent’s Park became the first important city park designed for public use. Regent’s Park had a lasting and beneficial influence on park designers through the rest of the century and beyond.41 In 1843, Joseph Paxton built Birkenhead Park, the first publicly owned park in Britain.
The American seedsman James Vick, in 1881, included in his monthly magazine an illustration of St. James Park in London (fig. 1.1). He wrote, “The view here given in St. James Park, London, is of a very different kind, and no admirer of nature would hesitate to ascribe to it far greater merit as a pleasing work of art. What is meant as the natural style of landscape gardening is here made evident much more forcibly than is possible by words.”
Fig. 1.1 A view of St. James Par in London.
America would also build parks. Central
